This mystery puzzled me.

Under the impossibility of forming an opinion, I jumped from one extreme to the other.

That there really was something could not be doubted, and the incredulous were invited to put their finger on the wound of the Scotia.
On my arrival at New York the question was at its height.

The theory of the floating island, and the unapproachable sandbank, supported by minds little competent to form a judgment, was abandoned.

And, indeed, unless this shoal had a machine in its stomach, how could it change its position with such astonishing rapidity?
From the same cause, the idea of a floating hull of an enormous wreck was given up.
There remained, then, only two possible solutions of the question, which created two distinct parties: on one side, those who were for a monster of colossal strength; on the other, those who were for a submarine vessel of enormous motive power.
But this last theory, plausible as it was, could not stand against inquiries made in both worlds.